Drwenski: Let's rid ourselves of Confederate statue

An outcry from some Houston residents has singled out a bronze Confederate statue - Spirit of the Confederacy - in Sam Houston Park, were it was erected in 1908. ( Michael Ciaglo / Houston Chronicle )

An outcry from some Houston residents has singled out a bronze...

Remove, destroy, and replace the "Spirit of the Confederacy" statue. Do it now, without delay or reservation. Do it now, with celebration and camaraderie.

Someone will say, "Of course, slavery and segregation were bad, but this is our history. We can't remove history!" As a historian, one thing is clear: We choose our history. We choose how to frame the past every day. We choose what heroes to honor and what evildoers to condemn. To understand this statue, we have to look at the choices Houston has made in the past in order to make the right choice now.

On Jan.19, 1908, after nine years of fundraising, the United Daughters of the Confederacy unveiled the statue that currently sits in Sam Houston Park. While these wealthy Houston women raised money for the statue, Texas passed a poll tax and Houston segregated its streetcars, restaurants and parks. In 1922, the city outlawed interracial cohabitation.

The master of ceremonies at the statue's dedication, Judge Norman G. Kittrell, had recently published a novel that promoted the myth of the kindly slave owner and the contented slave. His surrogate in the book states, "I would no more leave my wife at night unprotected against villainous, lecherous negroes than I would leave her in this house were it in flames." In the two months after the statue's dedication, four black men were lynched within 50 miles of where it stands.

This statue was made to remake our history, to glorify slavery and to celebrate segregation. Some will say this Confederate monument is just a monument to the defeated, a 100-year-old participation trophy. This misses the point.

When this statue was erected in 1908, it wasn't a participation trophy. It celebrated victory. White supremacy had won. It celebrated the final defeat of Reconstruction and the triumph of Jim Crow. The "Spirit of the Confederacy" was a monument to a newly created apartheid government in Houston. And when that apartheid was finally destroyed, what did the city do? In 1965, the city chose to move that statue to a more prominent place in the park. We have chosen to keep it there and maintain it every day since.

On land that was once a labor camp, we can choose to venerate a better history. We can honor the 100,000 enslaved people brought to this state who managed to stay alive while marching coffled, neck-to-neck. Celebrate those who kept their families and culture alive in the face of daily violence. Celebrate the enslaved Texans who killed their overseers and masters, knowing that it would be their last act.

Choose to celebrate the nearly 200,000 black soldiers who enlisted in the Union Army. Celebrate the 2,000 Texas men who defied their state government and chose their country over slavery. Celebrate the 47 black Texans who made it out of hostile territory to fight against the Confederacy. Celebrate those who rejoiced when General Order No. 3 was read in Galveston. Celebrate the democracy we had in Texas after the Civil War, before it was stamped out by white supremacists. Celebrate the black Texans who built a community of free people in the shadow of this statue.

Build a new statue that celebrates triumph over oppression and join other cities across the United States, Haiti and Barbados, everywhere slavery and white supremacy have been defeated.

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For the past 109 years, Houston has chosen to keep this statue. Do not let our city keep making this choice. Inaction today is a choice for a white supremacist history. Melt it down and toss it in the bayou! And before the slag of the old statue cools, begin work on a new monument that celebrates our resistance to oppression. Destroy the "Spirit of the Confederacy" and replace it now!

Drwenski is a graduate of Rice University and former high school history teacher currently working on a Ph.D. in history.